Rakish Sir was very happy since he got the news that his transfer letter has been dispatched from head office. He pushed HR head of our region very hard to get it signed by our regional manager. Now, it was Dharmendra Sir’s turn. Rakish Sir had been travelling since the start of his career. Thus, he was very excited to spend the last leg of his career in his home town.

In that excitement, Rakish Sir was recalling his journey with the company. He was sharing his memories with us. While he was sharing his stories, his phone was beeping constantly. He had a habit of switching on the internet only once in a day. And he used to do that in the train only. So he used to receive all the notifications including whatsapp texts in the morning only. The main reason behind his switching on the internet in train only was not to get addicted to the things like whatsapp and facebook and to just use them as time pass in the train.

As his phone was beeping constantly, he stopped sharing his stories and started checking his notifications. In few minutes of time, all the excitement and happiness went off from his face. He became serious and dispirited.

“What happened? You were so happy till now. And all of a sudden that happiness has gone off from your face.” Dharmendra Sir asked Rakish Sir.

Rakish Sir showed us the video which he saw. In that video, a mentally affected guy climbed on the top of the train and started walking on the roof. “He will do chal chaiyan chhaiyan now,” was my first thought while seeing him walking on the top of the train. Rather, he started running on the roof. After running for a while he stopped. Then he grabbed the electric wire above the train. He got an electric shock and died on the spot. We were shocked after watching that video. After that video, there was stunned silence among us till we reached Anand. We were trying to absorb the dark side of commuting via train.

I was really disturbed after watching that video and coincidentally after that video, I started witnessing more of the fatal accidents while commuting. It started with dead body lying on the tracks. Exactly a day after watching that video, I saw a dead body lying on the tracks while coming back home. It was in real bad shape and no one was there to pick it up from the tracks. Trains were passing near by it, over it without even considering it. Couple of days later, a boy slipped down on to the tracks while getting down from a running train. I was waiting at the station when it happened. He survived but there were severe injuries on his face. Train was on when he fell down from it. To save himself he squeezed his body in the small gap between the track and platform. When the train stopped then people pulled him up.

Then I saw the dead body on the platform few days after that incident. It was covered with the clothe and that clothe had turned red due to the blood of the dead body. I was getting more and more disturbed as I was witnessing such incidents. After witnessing quite a few of them, I decided not to concentrate on them. I started diverting my mind from them. I decided that I will not think about it or ask anyone about the accident or the incident.

Death is one of the dark sides of doing up down via train. Every year lot of people die on railway tracks. Some people come in front of the running train to kill themselves. While some die accidentally. Suicides on railway tracks can’t be controlled because it’s one’s own decision to do that but accidents on railway tracks can be controlled. Accidents related to local trains occur in the rush of the hour. Sometimes people get late and are not able to reach at the platform before the departure of the train. So to reach the office on time, they try to catch the running train. And while doing that, they slip and the accident occurs. In the similar fashion, sometimes people try to get out of the running train and they slip or fall after doing that.

There is a huge difference between the speed of local trains and express or super-fast trains. Express or super-fast trains starts from gear one and slowly it shifts the gears. While the local trains starts from gear four directly. All the passengers travelling in the local trains gets the push when it starts moving. So it is very risky to get in or get out of the running local train. Apart from that, accident occurs when people don’t check the speed of the train or the train itself while crossing the tracks. It is a train not a bike or a car. Thus it will not stop with by showing the hand. After watching that video and witnessing the accidents and the dead bodies, I stuck a sticky note in my mind saying, “Better late than never.”